Let's hope it all goes swimmingly! - A Journeyman Career [FM13]

[Cuddlefish]

Hello, my name is Cuddlefish, you may know me from many failed sign-ups over on the CSE forum. I recently read through AK22's journeyman career and it has inspired me to create my very own!

I will be setting myself four goals during the career but apart from that the career will follow a normal "journeyman" style career. These are:

• Make Norwich City numero uno! - My hometown and one true love.
  
• Gain Dundee a SPL title! - I live here so it seems like the right thing to do. Also United has one so it should even out the rivalry.
  
• Bring Ajax back to European Glory! - Haven't won since 1995. Something needs to be done about that.
  
• Win something with Cuddle Fish's favourite team. - I'll be randomizing a favourite team for my manager Cuddle Fish so he's going to want to win something for them at one point.
  

Now realistically I'll probably go off on a tangent and not complete a single one of these goals but they're there so if I do then I'll get some extra brownie points.

Let's meet our manager Cuddle Fish:

As you can see he's a bit of a weird one. Born in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to Bolivian parents he's only had experience as a Sunday League Footballer playing for the Universal Muffler Samba B team. He's a big fan of Italian Serie B team A.C. Cesena and hopes to one day bring them to success; I think he had this picture pasted up on his wall as a child.

Onto the technical stuff -

Database size: Large with players from top clubs in each continent loaded.

Nations playable:

• Argentina and Brazil - Gotta have this in just for the regens.
  
• Chile - I wanted another South American nation to compete with the big two. A Chilean team have only won the Copa Libertadores once so it seemed like a good pick.
  
• USA and Mexico - Want to manage in North America at some point and am not particularly fond of MLS so I included Mexico aswell.
  
• South Korea - I'm a big fan of "e-sports" (Starcraft, League of Legends) so South Korea has a special place in my heart.
  
• Spain, England, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal - The big six.
  
• Scotland and Netherlands - For the goals.
  
• Belarus, Belgium, Sweden and Turkey - Wanted an Eastern European country, Scandinavian country, another Central European and Turkey. Two average nations, two small.

Start date: July 2012

Cuddle Fish doesn't like any of the jobs on offer at the moment so has decided to take a holiday until the new year when he will take his first steps in becoming a world class Football Manager. Let's hope it all goes swimmingly!

[Cuddlefish]

FK Linköping - January 2013

After holidaying through the second half of 2012 I decided it was time to apply for some jobs. We got a offer immediately from FK Linköping and promptly accepted the £250/week deal. FK Linköping are a Swedish team that currently resides in Division 2 Östra Götaland which is the 4th tier of Swedish Football. As far as I can tell the club is recently promoted from the Swedish lower leagues and has given me the goal of avoiding relegation. This should be easy-ish as we're predicted for a 9th place finish, one spot ahead of relegation play-offs.

We've been given a £7.4k transfer and £2160/week wage budget which is significantly higher than the £100/week we currently spend. Actually most of our current players are only on £5-10 a week (part-time). I wonder how they survive. Speaking of our current players I have no idea how good they are as I have joined the squad extremely short staffed. Thankfully the Swedish season doesn't start until April so I'll have a lot of time to find some decent staff and sign players.

Finances are fine with a bit over £74k in the bank. We're actually projected to make a profit this season but that's probably just due to our current small wage bill.

I'll leave you with a look at our 5500 (2400 seated) capacity stadium that we share with women's football team Linköpings FC. Can't say I can complain about that

[deltablue]

Cesena's a nice and random favourite team

[Cuddlefish]

FK Linköping - Pre-season 2013

My first deal of business was to sign new players. Unfortunately I started with no scouts and the ones I finally did sign were pretty bad, so instead I decided to offer trials to every free transfer I could find and let my assistant manager rank them on ability. He had his work cut out a bit as no less than 1763 people accepted the trial offer. This unorthodox style of scouting allowed me to quickly search through every free transfer and sign the best while leaving my terrible scouts search for players at other Division 3 clubs. I also let go of most of the original players with the exception of central defenders as we couldn't find any decent ones. Here's how the transfers looked at the end of the pre-season.

Fortunately despite our lacking of good central defenders we did manage to pick up a few players that will be key to our performance this year including Hampus Rikardsson - Our star player and hopefully main source of goals.

After signing our pre-season was pretty boring with 4 months of time to spare so I set the fixtures and tactics and holidayed off until the start of the new season.

[deltablue]

That many players coming in mean things are unlikely to go well in the short-term.

[Cuddlefish]

FK Linköping - April 2013

Our first game of the season saw us at home against relegation predicted side Nybro IF. We were up 1-0 at half-time and 2-0 in the 59th minute. Everything was going to plan when suddenly our defence looked a bit shaky and due to a couple of mistakes Nybro scored once in the 61st minute and again in the 69th minute. Fortunately our saving grace came in the form of Darko Glavas as he netted a long range shot in the 78th minute, gaining our first win in our first ever league game as a manager. Next game was away to Assyriska IF and things were looking hopeful as we sat at the top of the table albeit only after one game. It was a pretty boring game with us failing to ever make a real opportunity to score and we ended up losing 1-0.

All in all I'm happy getting both our first win and loss out of the way in our first two games. We currently sit in 5th place and I'd be pleased if we finished around there come September. However we've only played 2 of 22 games and a lot could change.

[Cuddlefish]

That many players coming in mean things are unlikely to go well in the short-term.

It was unavoidable. Our original players were only rated 1/2 a gold star and "a decent player for most Division 3 teams".

[deltablue]

I know, I've been in the very same position in Sweden before, but it won't always make a difference.

[Cuddlefish]

FK Linköping - May 2013

I don't know what to say. We started off great with a 4-1 victory at home and then we just kept loosing. Our defence were terrible. I don't even know how we got a draw. Most of the goals against us were simply because our defence gifted them the ball in our third and 16-yard box. We didn't make much ground attacking wise either. It also didn't help that Rikardsson injured himself in training for a month. He'll be back in June so hopefully things change.

Currently residing in 10th in the relegation play-offs, one point ahead of automatic promotion. We have the 2nd worse goals against us, only better than 12th place. It is still early in the season though with 15 games still to play.

[Cuddlefish]

FK Linköping - June 2013

We continued where we left off in May, still losing games and again somehow managing to scrape a draw. On the plus side we have broken a new team record! It just happens to be for Most Games without Winning

Dropped a stop since last month. Starting to look like we're going to struggle to stay above water this season.

[Cuddlefish]

FK Linköping - July 2013

2 lost, 2 drawn. About the standard for us at this point. Last game shouldn't of even been a draw as we were given a penalty in injury time of the 90th minute.

12th place. Not good. Last season 9th place had 21 points so that's what we should be aiming for if we don't want to get relegated although that may just be a dream at this point.

[deltablue]

Oh dear, need a bit of a great escape now.

[Cuddlefish]

FK Linköping - August 2013

And it wasn't to happen. 1 lost, 3 drawn this month. I don't know whether it's been my tactics, large amounts of signings or just having bad players but I have failed this club.

And with three games to go we're relegated. I know technically we're not but I doubt we're going to win all three matches, Nykoping losing all three of their matches and somehow making up for a 23 goal difference.

I have resigned from my post (I would just be putting off the inevitable since FK Linköping will be relegated to un-playable next season) and have started looking for a job.

[Cuddlefish]

Career History:

Season     Team              League                       Finish    Extra Information                           
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2013       FK Linköping      Division 2 Östra Götaland    12th      Relegated to un-playable. Resigned three games before season end.

Memorable Players:

Hampus Rikardsson

Stats - 2013

History - 2013

Past Teams:

FK Linköping

Season    League                       Finish    Extra Information                           
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2013      Division 2 Östra Götaland    12th      Relegated to un-playable.

[deltablue]

It might have been the signings, but you can't really win in that situation. the existing squad is worse than useless, but an entirely new squad has it's own problems and may not be that good relative to the rest if the league, even though they're world-beaters compared to the players they're replacing. They have to be genuinely strong for the league for that to really have a chance of working out.

[Cuddlefish]

It might have been the signings, but you can't really win in that situation. the existing squad is worse than useless, but an entirely new squad has it's own problems and may not be that good relative to the rest if the league, even though they're world-beaters compared to the players they're replacing. They have to be genuinely strong for the league for that to really have a chance of working out.

I totally agree. It was really depressing seeing other team's reports where all players were considered 5-star players with my one 4 1/2 star.

[WarroOxford]

Tough break with the relegation, but at least it can get better from now, right?

You never know, if you made the same wholesale changes to a team that was in a league with more games, they may have meshed together better. 22 spread-out games aren't really enough in my eyes to get the team settled, though that's just my opinion.

[Nobby_McDonald]

Not a good start.

[markyosullivan]

Hope it'll go better for you soon. Had a bad spell myself in Sweden Division 2 in FM12 but eventually found a Swedish team which I liked

[Mattias333]

Hello, my name is Cuddlefish, you may know me from many failed sign-ups over on the CSE forum. I recently read through AK22's journeyman career and it has inspired me to create my very own!

I will be setting myself four goals during the career but apart from that the career will follow a normal "journeyman" style career. These are:

• Make Norwich City numero uno! - My hometown and one true love.
  
• Gain Dundee a SPL title! - I live here so it seems like the right thing to do. Also United has one so it should even out the rivalry.
  
• Bring Ajax back to European Glory! - Haven't won since 1995. Something needs to be done about that.
  
• Win something with Cuddle Fish's favourite team. - I'll be randomizing a favourite team for my manager Cuddle Fish so he's going to want to win something for them at one point.
  

Now realistically I'll probably go off on a tangent and not complete a single one of these goals but they're there so if I do then I'll get some extra brownie points.

Let's meet our manager Cuddle Fish:

As you can see he's a bit of a weird one. Born in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to Bolivian parents he's only had experience as a Sunday League Footballer playing for the Universal Muffler Samba B team. He's a big fan of Italian Serie B team A.C. Cesena and hopes to one day bring them to success; I think he had this picture pasted up on his wall as a child.

Onto the technical stuff -

Database size: Large with players from top clubs in each continent loaded.

Nations playable:

• Argentina and Brazil - Gotta have this in just for the regens.
  
• Chile - I wanted another South American nation to compete with the big two. A Chilean team have only won the Copa Libertadores once so it seemed like a good pick.
  
• USA and Mexico - Want to manage in North America at some point and am not particularly fond of MLS so I included Mexico aswell.
  
• South Korea - I'm a big fan of "e-sports" (Starcraft, League of Legends) so South Korea has a special place in my heart.
  
• Spain, England, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal - The big six.
  
• Scotland and Netherlands - For the goals.
  
• Belarus, Belgium, Sweden and Turkey - Wanted an Eastern European country, Scandinavian country, another Central European and Turkey. Two average nations, two small.

Start date: July 2012

Cuddle Fish doesn't like any of the jobs on offer at the moment so has decided to take a holiday until the new year when he will take his first steps in becoming a world class Football Manager. Let's hope it all goes swimmingly!

As a Norwich season ticket holder I shall be reading your thread with great interest

Not spoilt it for myself though so im gonna crack on with reading!

[Brucehum]

Best wishes for the new team!

I never found how do you choose a random favourite team? And by the way, that photo you put of the player with that hair is classic!!!